Social Inequality and the Sociology of Life Style: Material and Cultural Aspects of Social Stratification

The rising importance of dimensions such as age, gender, nationality, ethnicity, political attitudes, and multiple choices to organize the notion of life course has made the older class concept appear obsolete to the research sociologist. My thesis is that the current expanding discussions of life styles are not necessarily a substitute but a valuable supplement to social stratification theory. Life style research can contribute to the question of the relevance of the class concept. The result of my investigation shows that life style research, when connected to the writings of Thorstein Veblen, Georg Simmel, and Max Weber, can enrich research in the social sciences.     

超越产权归属的偏见

不要把海尔看成是张瑞敏的海尔,不要把联想看成是柳传志的联想,只有更多的人能分享到海尔、联想的成功时,企业才能真正发展壮大     

Upward classism: Prejudice and stereotyping against the wealthy

While there are many studies of prejudice towards disadvantaged minorities, there has been little research into stereotypes of rich people. The author commissioned the first international comparative study to investigate popular attitudes towards rich people. He analyses findings from the United States, Great Britain, Germany, and France, and calculates a ‘Social Envy Coefficient’ for these four countries. Envy appears most pronounced in France, followed by Germany. By contrast, envy is significantly lower in the United States and Great Britain, although there are interesting variations by age. In addition, the study subjects a sample of popular international feature films and articles in German newspapers to detailed media content analysis. This analysis finds that rich individuals are predominantly portrayed as cold-hearted, profit-hungry and morally suspect.     

Some Informational Aspects of Conservatism

Abstract

When two value estimates are about equally likely, conservatism dictates reporting the less optimistic one (e.g. Lower of Cost or Market). We use an analytical model to investigate informational implications of this dictum, and identify types of environments where the conservative accounting treatment is more informative than a predetermined choice. The bias induced by the conservative choice is found to be adequately moderate, never excessive. It benefits users of the financial statements that take the reported figures at face value whenever upside errors are more costly (possibly only slightly more costly) than similar downside errors. Sophisticated users, who know how to give the reports the best possible interpretation, benefit from the lower variability, not from the bias. These latter benefits are least ambiguous when upside errors and downside errors are about equally costly.     

Welfare Economic Aspects of Capital Punishment

Abstract . Much has been written in recent years concerning the issue of capital punishment. The major argument on the side of the retentionists appears to revolve around deterrence. Using postulates from modern welfare economics the authors demonstrate that the deterrence question is largely irrelevant. Attention is also given to extracting materials from the writings of earlier economists from Petty to Mill which may be helpful in resolving the issue. The conclusion which emerges is that capital punishment is not justifiable on economic grounds.     

Prejudice, exclusion, and compensating transfers: the economics of ethnic segregation

Prejudiced groups self-segregate and exclude others. This is observed in South African apartheid, in the exclusion of Eastern European or Muslim immigrants from Western Europe and in ghettos formed by immigrants in many countries. In the United States, minorities (mostly African Americans) are segregated in central cities and wealthier European Americans reside predominantly in the suburbs. A fully closed general equilibrium model of the last case is presented. The model treats land, labor and product markets. Most whites flee the inner city for white-dominated suburbs. This benefits blacks by lowering inner city rents relative to wages. When whites are weakly prejudiced, exclusion from the suburbs hurts whites as well as blacks. But when whites are strongly prejudiced, a lump sum endowment transfer from whites to blacks can split the gains-from-trade: whites can pay transfers to blacks in exchange for blacks accepting exclusion. The transfer needed to compensate blacks is large if blacks are strongly hurt by exclusion and small if they are only slightly hurt. How much transfers to US central cities and to the poor compensate American blacks for the effects of exclusion is an open question.     

Public Policy Aspects of Beach Erosion Control

A bstract . Beach erosion control conies with it several issues of importance to the public. The origin of these issues include the beach as a public good , the way decisions are derived for beach erosion , the assumptions behind beach erosion control, the incentives each actor faces in forming a beach erosion control strategy, and the concern for equity in beach erosion control decisions. The decision-making system surrounding beach erosion control is outlined. The author concludes that all relevant interests require access to decision-making for the public interest to be determined.     

Spatial Aspects of Contagion among Emerging Economies

Abstract

A spatial model is used to specify and then test for the existence of contagion among emerging market economies. We consider both trade and regional channels of contagion. Our results suggest that contagion is a statistically significant factor in foreign exchange markets and, furthermore, its effects are not uniform across the countries considered. Our results also suggest that trade links are significant channels of contagion transmission; on the other hand, geographic distances do not appear to be significant channels of contagion transmission. We also report results which indicate the extent of contagion. These results relate to effects which emanate from one country to another.

Aspects spatiaux de la contagion parmi les économies émergentes

Résumé?Nous faisons usage d'un modèle spatial pour spécifier, puis tester, l'existence d'une contagion parmi les économies des marchés émergents. Nous nous penchons sur les vecteurs commercial et régional de cette contagion. Nos résultats indiquent d'une part que la contagion est un facteur significatif sur le plan statistique dans les marchés à commerce extérieur, d'autre part que ses effets ne sont pas uniformes dans les pays examinés. Nos résultats nous permettent d'affirmer également que les relations commerciales sont des vecteurs significatifs de transmission de la contagion; par contre, les distances géographiques ne semblent pas être des vecteurs significatifs de transmission de la contagion. Nous présentons également des résultats qui soulignent l’étendue de la contagion: ces résultats portent sur les effets émanant d'un pays à un autre.

Aspectos espaciales del contagio entre economias emergentes

Résumén?Se utiliza un modelo espacial para especificar, y luego se comprueba la existencia de contagio entre las economías de mercados emergentes. Consideramos canales de contagio, tanto comerciales como regionales. Nuestros resultados sugieren que el contagio es un factor estadísticamente significativo en los mercados de divisas, así como que sus efectos no son uniformes a través de los países considerados. Nuestros resultados también sugieren que los lazos comerciales son canales significativos para la transmisión de contagio; por otra parte, las distancias geográficas no parecen ser canales significativos de transmisión de contagio. También incluimos resultados que indican la extensión del contagio. Dichos resultados se relacionan con efectos que emanan de un país a otro.

     

Semiparametric Estimator for Binary‐outcome Sample Selection: Prejudice Matters in Election

a semiparametric estimator for binary‐outcome sample‐selection models is proposed that imposes only single index assumptions on the selection and outcome equations without specifying the error term distribution. I adopt the idea in Lewbel (2000) using a ‘special regressor’ to transform the binary response Y so that the transformed Y becomes linear in the latent index, which then makes it possible to remove the selection correction term by differencing the transformed Y equation. There are various versions of the estimator, which perform differently trading off bias and variance. A simulation study is conducted, and then I apply the estimators to US presidential election data in 2008 and 2012 to assess the impact of racial prejudice on the elections, as a black candidate was involved for the first time ever in the US history.     

Aspects of growth in a system of cities

This paper explores and develops the modeling of growth in a system of cities in two alternative settings. First, we examine a large growing economy with a fully developed system of cities with perfectly malleable private and public capital. Local scale economies in production and diseconomies in consumption in equilibrium offset each other at the margin so that from a national point of view we have a constant returns to scale economy. We show that at the steady state the number of cities grows exponentially at the rate of growth of the population. We then examine the impact of technological change, considering a case where public capital is not perfectly malleable. In the second setting, we consider the problem of growth for a small economy and discuss problems associated with the transition to the steady state. We modify the previous model to describe a system of cities that is just starting to develop. Investment in public infrastructure capital is subject to sharp indivisibilities and as a result new cities are built at discrete points in time.     

浅论偏见对公众舆论的影响——以电影《十二公民》为例

人们所持有的成见或刻板成见对舆论有着相当大的影响,本文是在借鉴李普曼《公众舆论》的基础上结合中国社会现实,通过对电影《十二公民》的情节分析,探讨偏见对中国公众舆论的影响,并对如何消除偏见做了一定程度的思考。